By Σ, retouched by Wugapodes - File:Noam_Chomsky_portrait_2017.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85616571

Noam Chomsky is one of my favourite persons on Earth.

If you don't know Chomsky, I suggest that you either start with a book, either Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, written together with Edward S. Herman and Chomsky, or Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, or with one of the documentaries about him and his work. I love his Notes on Anarchism.

My tips, however, cover very little of Chomsky's body of work.

He revolutionised the field of linguistics, computer science, and it's safe to say his work in analytic philosophy and political science (mainly his dissident work that centers on the USA) have been extremely illuminating to millions of people.

I think the first book I read by Chomsky was 9-11. What struck me about that book was how little I knew about what pre-empted 2001-09-11, which isn't the first 9/11. From an interview between C. J. Polychroniou and Chomsky published in September 2022^[1]:

At the outset, I referred to 9/11/2001, not just 9/11. There's a good reason. What we call 9/11 is the second 9/11. The first 9/11 was far more destructive and brutal by any reasonable measure: 9/11/73.

To see why, consider per-capita equivalents, the right measure. Suppose that on 9/11/2001, thirty thousand people had been killed, five hundred thousand viciously tortured, the government overthrown, and a brutal dictatorship installed. That would have been worse than what we call 9/11.

It happened. It wasn't deplored by the US government, or by private capital, or by the international financial institutions that the US largely controls, or by the leading figures of "libertarianism." Rather, it was lauded and granted enormous support. The perpetrators, like Henry Kissinger, are highly honored. I suppose bin Laden is lauded among jihadis.

All should recognize that I am referring to Chile, 9/11/1973.

Chomsky has taught me much about the world, not only in relation to U. S. domestic policy but also in relation to philosophy, computer science, linguistics, history, and international law.

documentaries

• Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media. See it for free here. It was released in 1992. The documentary is based on the book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Chomsky.
• Requiem for the American Dream. See it for free here. It was released in 2015. It's mainly about the neoliberal assault on the USA and the collapse of American class mobility.
• Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?. It's a discussion between Michel Gondry and Noam about linguistics and philosophy. It was released in 2013.

podcast episodes

• Noam Chomsky in 1989, USA, part 1